


The Road Back to Okay

by Banshi13



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Coda, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode 9.11, Episode Tag, Feelings Realization, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-24 20:17:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17710862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banshi13/pseuds/Banshi13
Summary: God, it hurt looking at Steve, seeing him like this, so broken and hurt and lost. “You have to grieve, Steven. Okay?  You have to, you have to give yourself that time to miss Joe, and be angry that he’s gone, and cry over him, mourn him. And you have got to forgive yourself.”  He held Steve’s gaze until he was sure the message had gotten through. “You want any more food?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: Warning, incoming rant that may possibly be worthy of Danny Williams: 
> 
> Like many fans, I had huge issues with 9.11. An episode that was supposed to focus on Steve getting vengeance for Joe’s murder turned into an episode about Steve, Catherine, and Greer, and how their relationships intersected throughout the years. That’s a fine episode to have, just not in an episode that was billed and promoted as being the episode where Steve goes after Joe’s killers. However, if I’m being honest, I likely would’ve rolled my eyes at an episode focused on Steve, Cath, and Greer if only because I, as are many fans, am beyond exhausted with the Steve/Catherine saga of this show. It really is time to let that ship die and allow Steve and Catherine to move forward in their relationship as friends, good friends, and nothing more.
> 
> The last time Catherine and Danny saw each other was 6.03, and there was an important conversation they had; Danny told Cath he wanted her to stay for Steve, she said she wanted nothing more, Danny thought that meant she was sticking around; she didn’t. I was hoping for at least a mention of that, a slight confrontation, acknowledgement, something - I didn’t get that, so this first chapter is a ‘fix’ if you will.
> 
> I really didn't like that Danny was left completely in the dark about what was going to go down in Laos. I do believe that Steve specifically and purposely kept Danny out of the mission because he didn’t want Danny involved and didn’t want to risk losing him, but the fact that Junior was called in and Danny still knew nothing about it really, really bothered me. Once again, we had such an important episode, a pivotal mark for the season and for Steve, and Scott Caan was relegated to a guest role status to make room for Michelle Borth, who was the actual guest star in that episode, along with two others. Not only that, the writers substituted conversations that Danny should have had with Steve, for Catherine.
> 
> And then, of course, the ‘under cover married’ scene. There was no reason for it. None. There was no reason given as to why they had to go undercover as married. It was purely to throw a bone to McRoll fans, many of whom only tune in during Borth’s once a season episode, and then (after some are done trolling and antagonizing the actual fans of the entire show) leave until the next time Borth guest stars. That aggravated me so much because those who are on the McDanno side of things, who watch every single episode from start to finish, who keep this show going, are waiting for even the barest acknowledgement that there could be something more with Steve and Danny to be explored. It’s not like Scott Caan hasn’t floated the idea himself. It has been acknowledged by both AOL and Caan that the McDanno relationship is like the main character of the show, so it boggles my mind why the writers thought that throwing in a ‘let’s have Steve and Cath go undercover married w/o coming up with a legitimate reason’ was a good idea. The scene where Cath jumps up to stop their mark from leaving the table and does so in such a way that would lead the viewer to believe that they had been having an engaging conversation felt so forced and out of place precisely because she hadn't said a word to him the entire time she and Steve had been sitting there. There was no legitimate basis for her to jump up and say, "Oh, leaving so soon?" and to act put out about it. That observation isn't a knock on Borth either - that's a knock on the writing and the directing. The entire casino scene could have been done much better.
> 
> I take no joy in flaming this episode. I was so looking forward to it. I love the show, I love the cast, I love the crew, Scott Caan is my favorite actor, and to their credit, the writers and producers have put together some absolutely stellar stories this season, but this episode left so much to be desired, and there were so many opportunities that were missed, and, quite frankly, lines and discussions that should have gone to Scott/Danny but were given to Michelle/Catherine, that this episode will go down as one of my least favorite of Season 9. When 700K viewers choose to not even tune in for the first episode after hiatus when all other H50 return from hiatus episodes received a huge rating bump in previous years, and the only difference is that Michelle Borth is guest starring which means more Steve/Cath saga drama? That should be a huge red flag to the writers/producers of this show that the fan base has had enough of romantic McRoll.
> 
>  
> 
> _Disclaimer: Hawaii Five-O, as well as the characters found within the series, are owned by CBS Productions, K/O Paper Products, and 101st Street Productions._

**Hawaii Five-0**

Danny felt sick as Catherine closed the old and rickety wooden door, shutting him off from seeing what was happening behind it, shutting him off from the man bloodied and tied to the chair.

Shutting him off from Steve.

Catherine offered him a look of understanding, like she knew exactly what was going through his mind at that very moment. Her voice was quiet when she asked, "Do you remember Steve ever mentioning a man by the name of Mangosta?"

Danny tilted his head, searching his thoughts while trying to wash away the image he'd just seen. "A guy that was after Doris a while ago, right?" He saw her nod, watched her move towards the picnic table on the porch, and that was when the first screams of agony came from behind the door. Danny moved forward. Catherine stepped in front of him, between him and where he needed to be, between him and Steve. "Don't," she cautioned. "He won't listen, not when he's like this. You know that." She pursed her lips, placed what Danny supposed she thought was a comforting hand on his forearm. "Come walk with me." And she stepped off the porch and into the grass, heading away from the cabin, away from the screams.

Away from Steve.

Danny took a shuddering breath and rubbed the back of his neck before turning and doing the same, following the woman past the water basin towards his rented car. Catherine stopped and turned around, hands in the pockets of her jacket as she waited for Danny to catch up. "Years ago, shortly after Steve brought Doris back to the island, she disappeared again. You remember?"

Danny did remember. His mind took him back to a private hangar on an airstrip, the sun setting large and bright in the sky as he drove up to park right in front of Steve, hopped out to share the surprising news that when she'd had the chance to kill Wo Fat, Doris hadn't. In fact, she'd put three rounds from the gun Catherine had given her right in the floor. And that news started a chain of events that had led Steve McGarrett down a path that could only be described as hell.

Danny realized Catherine was still waiting for an answer, so he gave a mute nod. "After she disappeared, Steve asked me to help find her, and I did. Actually, she popped in on us one morning, making breakfast. Everything was going well until I found out that one of Doris's old marks was also on the island, hunting her."

"Mangosta," Danny nodded along. "This is the time you didn't tell Steve that a crazy man was trying to kill his mother, right?" He didn't mean to, he really didn't, but maybe he did, just a little bit. Maybe Danny did mean to drive that point home again. This was the first time he'd seen Catherine in almost three years, and the last time they'd been together, she'd assured him she was staying in Hawaii. She wanted nothing more, she'd said, than to stay on Oahu with Steve, making little kick ass SEAL babies. He clenched his jaw and looked away. She did the same. "Yea," she finally breathed out, letting the jab go. "Steve wanted me to look after her one day and when Agent Channing and I got back to the house, Doris was gone, and I knew she'd gone looking for Mangosta. When I found her in a warehouse, she had Mangosta tied to a chair, and she was torturing him with cables."

 _Just like Steve is now_ was the unfinished part of that little tale, Danny knew. "So, when you found her, what did you do?"

"I told her to stop, told her she'd kill him if she kept it up," Catherine shifted against the hood of the car, looking over Danny's shoulder at the house behind him.

"And you're not telling Steve to do the same because?" Danny took a step forward, hands in his pockets, mirroring the woman in front of him. "You brought Thomsen here, you knew he was going to lose his shit-"

"I didn't know he'd do this," Catherine swallowed. "I didn't, Danny. That's the truth. I knew Steve would interrogate him, that he'd probably beat the hell out of him, but I didn't see this coming, not… not the cold numbness of it, of what he's doing."

 _"Then why didn't you stop him?!"_ Danny's calm demeanor finally broke, his voice carrying across the lush Montana meadow. "Jesus, Cath! Do you know how long it took for Steve to actually become half way normal? To work through his emotions even just a little bit, to ask for help in situations like this?! To not go to that dark place that lets him do this kind of stuff but doesn't let him live with it afterwards?! And by the way, why wasn't I called? Why didn't he call me? He's been up here for a month, you've been up here for how long?"

"A few days."

"A few days, and not once did either of you think to call me?" Danny flung his arms out, frustrated. "Did you not think I'd get on a plane as soon as I could?"

"I did, actually," Catherine pursed her lips. "I asked Steve where you were and he just said he didn't want you here for this, that he didn't want you involved."

Danny gaped at her like a fish.

"Think about it, Danny," Cath looked at him, still calm, cool, and collected. "You're the most important person in his life. You have children. He cares so much about Grace and Charlie." She took a breath. "And you'd try stop him from doing this. He knows that, knows that you'd appeal to his 'better angels', and you know him when he gets like this. He has one active mission right now, and that is to find the people that ordered Joe's murder, his team's murder."

Logically, Danny understood that. He got what Catherine was saying. But…

"At what cost, Cath?" He looked at her miserably. "He'll never forget this. Weeks, months from now, when this is all over and he goes to sleep at night, he's going to wake up hearing those screams he's creating right now!"

"And you'll be there." Catherine said it as if it were gospel truth. Danny looked at her, at a loss for words as a loud and piercing stomach-churning scream echoed behind him. Less than a minute later, a tall, bearded figure emerged from the cabin carrying a bucket, and Danny immediately started for Steve, meeting him at the water basin.

"You have to stop."

Steve didn't acknowledge him, merely filled the bucket with water again and turned to head back inside, to continue his questioning of Thomsen.

"Steve, listen to me – please, _please_ listen to me, okay? If you never listen to me about anything else ever again, just listen to me this one time, _please_!"

That seemed to get the man's attention. He paused, waiting. Danny took advantage of that to move in front of his partner, hands up.

"You have to stop, babe." Danny was practically begging. He knew it. He didn't care. "I know this guy knows things that you want to know. I know that you want to get the people who killed Joe, killed your friends, I understand, _believe me_ , I get it. You know that I do. But if you keep this up, Steve, if you keep doing this, you are going to lose a part of yourself that you cannot get back. Trust me. I speak from experience on this."

For a second, fleeting as it was, Danny saw his Steve in the gaze reflected back at him, saw the hurt and unbearable pain his partner was feeling – from Joe's death, from those of his friends, from what he was doing to the man yards away bloodied and broken and stinking of charred skin.

Then, just as quickly as it was there, it was gone, leaving Danny looking at a man hell bent on revenge without a care in the world for the consequences. Helpless, Danny watched Steve walk away from him, back towards the cabin, and close the door behind him. He didn't notice Catherine walking up from behind until she was standing right next to him.

"I know this is killing you, but you have to let him do this. He won't stop, not until it's over. The only way that happens is if he gets the information he needs."

Danny hated the logic in her voice, absolutely despised the cool reason and sense emanating from her body, her lips.

But he stayed where he was.

**Hawaii Five-0**

"I left because I had to."

Danny blinked and looked away from the scenery of the mountains in front of him. Catherine had taken him to wear Steve had buried Joe to pay his final respects. "What?"

"Come on, I know you've been dying to ask me since the second you saw me here." Cath offered him a small smile. "When I was in Afghanistan, the CIA found out I was there. They recruited me. They knew my history with Naval Intelligence, and my run in with Agent Channing from WIT/SEC made its way up the ladder." She stretched her arms out a little before crossing them over her chest. "As pissed as he was with me once he'd found out what I'd done, stealing his password to hack into the system to find Doris, apparently he'd given me a pretty good reference."

"Uh-huh." Danny didn't care.

"When I came back to Hawaii for Kono's wedding, I thought I'd have more time with Steve, more time to tell him, but I…" she cleared her throat. "And then the call came for a mission and my cover was aid work in Nepal, and that's what I was told to tell everyone."

"Okay." Danny leveled a half glare at her. "That doesn't explain why you lied to me."

"I didn't lie."

"You did."

"I didn't-"

"Yes, Cath, you did. You did." Danny turned fully towards her. "When I asked you to stick around, to stay for him, you told me there was nothing you wanted more, okay? Your exact words. But you did want something more, you needed something more and I don't understand why you need a job more than you needed the guy you'd been seeing for years, but you did. And he was destroyed Cath, okay?" He was glad to see some shred of shame in the woman's face as he looked her over. "But the _way_ you did it? Telling him you were going on a humanitarian mission when you'd really joined the CIA as a covert field agent – the kind of job his mother had before his life went to shit, that made her fake her death for 20 years, that was the reason for his father's murder and for him and Mary being sent away when they were kids? Cath…" Danny was at a loss. He was looking at a woman that he had, at one point in time, considered a close friend, who he'd entrusted his daughter to on occasion, who he was looking forward to seeing marry his best friend because that was what Steve had wanted at the time.

"I know," Cath breathed, contrite. "I know. Believe me, I know what I did. I was wrong. And I know I'm lucky to even have him in my life still. I should have told him."

"Yea, you should've." Danny looked back towards the mountain. "I told you, Cath, I told you how wrecked he was the first time, when you stayed in Afghanistan, how much that hurt him. I just… how could you do that to him?"

Catherine didn't have an answer, and Danny likely wouldn't accept any that she gave. Except…

"I don't think we would've ever worked in the end," Catherine gave him a side long glance. "I was flailing after I left the Navy, Danny. I missed the work, the comradery, the intelligence gathering. And I was given a chance to do all of that again and more when the CIA offered me a job; a job, as it turns out that I really love, and that I'm very good at. And if Steve would've asked me to marry him, I would have said yes. And if the CIA had still recruited me, I'd have said yes to that too. And where would that have left us?"

"At least he'd have known, at least you two would've had the chance to talk about it!"

"You said it yourself, Danny. Steve has no love lost for the CIA, not after all the run in's he's had with them, his mother's connection to the Agency notwithstanding." He heard her take a breath and looked over at her once more, seeing true remorse and regret written on her face. "I've never been the wife and mother type, you know? I mean, the idea sounds nice; get married, have children, have a family. I think it's something I thought I wanted at one point, but I never wanted to leave the Navy, and then when I did, I just… didn't feel as fulfilled as I had when I was serving. Taking the job with Billy's company was good, but we all know how that ended." She cleared her throat. "I told Steve when I left the last time that I needed to be needed. I needed to be a part of something larger than myself. And he got that. He understood that. He needs the same thing."

Danny quietly took in everything she said. "Do you know how he found out?" He asked. Catherine shook her head. "A guy stole a flash drive that had classified national security information downloaded onto it by an employee of a contracted security firm. The firm had ties to NSA, other agencies. So, out of an abundance of caution –"

"They recalled all their field agents," Cath looked at him, as if she suddenly realized. "That was… God, that wasn't long after I went under. I was in the Ukraine."

"Yea, we know." Danny scratched at his neck. "They couldn't locate you and they came to Steve asking if he knew where you were. And of course, he had to tell them 'no' while trying to understand why you kept it from him in the first place." His hand fell to his side and he shoved both into his pockets before walking away, back towards the cabin. In the distance, he saw Steve walking towards the water basin, bucket in hand, shoulders as stiff and tense as they were when Danny had arrived.

**Hawaii Five-0**

The screaming had died down about 15 minutes ago. As Danny and Catherine sat on the picnic table, the only thing they could hear occasionally was Steve's voice, asking the same questions over and over and over again, and the pained moans and choked sounds of his prey. Danny had zoned out again, closing his eyes as he came up with an ops plan on how to get Steve back to his normal levels of crazy after this entire ordeal, how to pull him back from the ledge that Danny had spent the first few years of their relationship identifying and fortifying so that Steve would never get close to it again. Unfortunately, Danny had never been able to see this possibility, that Joe would be slaughtered so brutally, under Steve's watch, right before his eyes.

In hindsight, Danny thought, perhaps he should have prepared for that too.

"Danny?"

"Hm."

"Mind if I ask you a question?"

Danny didn't have an opinion on it one way or the other. He gave a non-committal shrug.

"I know you love Steve, that you guys have been close almost since the moment you met-"

"We drew down on each other, I wanted to be the reason a bus was called for him, and he got me shot and I punched him in the jaw, all in the first 24 hours we knew each other, but sure, you can call that 'being close' if you want."

She laughed. Danny found the corner of his mouth tugging upward ever so slightly at the sound. He was still pissed; there really was nothing she'd ever be able to say to him to excuse what she'd done, but he had to admit Catherine laughing was miles better than the other noises that surrounded them currently.

"When Steve and I were dating, I'd always have a chuckle at your 'bromance' with each other," she continued quietly, fingers of either hand playing together. "I always wondered how the two of you, being so different, could be so attached at the hip, but the more and more I saw you both, hung out with both of you, I began to see it."

"Yea, well, he has a way of growing on you, you know?"

"I do," she smiled up at him from her perch on the table bench. Danny, rebel that he was, preferred the table top to sit. "And I'll admit, there were times when I wondered if maybe there was something else other than a close friendship. Sometimes the way he would talk about you to me, how he would talk about Grace, like he wished you and she were there all the time with him…I was almost jealous, even though I never said anything of course. That would've been silly."

Danny shifted slightly, ass numb from the hard wood, the chill in the air. "You had a question?"

"I get the feeling it wouldn't be so out of the realm of possibilities now if I asked if there was something more going on than friendship."

Danny sat up a little more and stuck his hands back in his pockets. "That a statement or a question?"

"A question."

He looked down at her. "Why do you ask?"

"You've always been protective of him, but you're so angry _for_ him." Her eyes studied him quietly. "Steve rarely loses his temper. You lose it all the time, no offense." Danny chuckled. True. "All the things you've said to me today are things I'm sure Steve asked you at one point, or several points. He's always tried to understand, though. Getting angry, showing fury, that's never been who he is, not with people he considers family. You do that for him, _did_ do that for him today."

"Just looking out for my boy, Catherine."

"Yea," she bit her lip, "I don't think that's all it is anymore. It was three years ago when we talked before I left, but now it's something else."

Danny shook his head and slid off the table. "You're imagining things."

"You're angry for him. You're hurt for him. I saw your face when you got a look inside at Thomsen, when you realized what Steve's been doing here, when you realized exactly what he's capable of. You were crushed, Danny." Catherine watched him pace slowly back and forth like a caged tiger. "Steve can't hate anyone he considers ohana, not even his mother, not even me – you do that for him so that he doesn't have to."

"I don't hate you, Cath," Danny cut in, looking at her sharply.

"But you did for a while because of what I did, how I did it. Because it hurt Steve so much and you had to see that, deal with it, be there while he worked through it." She shrugged a shoulder. "I get it."

Danny didn't think there was ever anyway Catherine could truly 'get it' unless she'd been in his shoes, but he swallowed that comment in favor of remaining quiet.

"Do you know the real reason I think Steve didn't call you here?"

"I thought we'd been over that already," Danny looked at her, exasperated.

"Surface reasons, not the one true one."

"Is this reason one that he gave you himself or one that you're pulling out of thin air?"

"More like one I've managed to figure out on my own. Call it woman's intuition." Her eyes followed Danny back and forth until he stopped and turned, hands on his hips, huffy and impatient just as she remembered. She smiled. "Like I said, you're the most important person to him. When he gets the information he needs to find Hassan, we're going after him. That's going to be a very dangerous, very _illegal_ mission, Danny. You, Grace, Charlie, the three of you are his family. He'd do anything to keep all of you safe, including leaving you out of this. The way he talks about you? You're his life, Danny. If you think he's bad now after losing Joe, imagine how insane he'd go if something happened to you because you were helping him with this?"

"What are you saying to me, huh? What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that what started as a love/hate relationship and then turned into a friendship has turned into something much, much more. You two are stupid in love with each other, and you don't even know it."

Danny found himself doing his best impression of a fish. "Okay. I know you've been gone for a while, but-"

"He didn't call me because he wanted me here more than he wanted you, Danny." Catherine stood up. "He called me because he knew I could get him Thomsen, and when it comes down to it, if he has to make the choice, he'd rather risk losing me than losing you, or having to tell your kids that their father didn't make it home because he was helping their Uncle Steve with a personal mission."

"I usually find myself saying this to him, but you are 100 percent out of your mind," Danny pointed at her. Catherine merely lifted an eyebrow. "No, no. No, do not give me that little witchy, all knowing look." It was ludicrous, patently absurd what Cath was suggesting. "I am a very happy, very straight alpha male. Steve is a very happy-," an agonizing scream interrupted Danny and he pursed his lips, "–well not so much right now, but usually a very happy, very straight alpha male. We have both dated women our entire lives and if either one of us had the slightest inclination to play on the same team, that would be something we'd definitely know about each other. That's not something he'd keep from me or I'd keep from him."

"All true," Catherine nodded. "Unless you both are in denial and don't know it."

"Your ex-boyfriend, the guy who was going to ask you to marry him, and my best friend is a couple of feet away playing positive charge meet negative charge with what is likely by now, if the decreased screaming is any indication, a dead suspect in the murder of his surrogate father, and you want to talk about me and Steve playing the dating game with each other?!" Danny looked like a rather indignant peacock, all ruffled feathers and outraged expression.

"You'd be surprised what agency members talk about to kill time in the field."

"I'm sure I would be," Danny sighed, slumping back against the picnic table.

"He stayed with you when you were in danger of being caught in an explosion while the bomb was disarmed," Cath held up a finger, "you stayed in Hawaii to clear his name when you had the chance to get your ex-wife back; Steve moved heaven and earth the day Grace was kidnapped by your ex-partner; you flew to Afghanistan of all places with a SEAL strike team to get him back when he was taken by the Taliban; Steve put his own life at risk when he helped you with Marco Reyes – yes, I know about that," she nodded at Danny's shocked expression. "The CIA is just like any other agency on the inside, we all love a good bit of gossip. Let me tell you, that story got several agents through what would have otherwise been very mundane, boring missions." She sidled over to stand in front of him and placed a light hand on his shoulder. "You guys cuddled together on the couch one Halloween for God's sake!" Danny laughed. She did too. It felt good, both of them laughing together for a little bit under the circumstances.

"When I came back last year to get Steve's help, he told me about the team catching that virus, how you all had to go into quarantine. The look on his face when he was telling me that you'd been saved only to get shot by some crazed guy with a misplaced vendetta – Danny, it was like he was contemplating what facing his biggest fear would be like; his biggest fear, by the way, is losing you. Whether that means you dying or you leaving Hawaii, him just not being able to be near you anymore, touch you, talk to you face to face, see you every day… that's his own personal hell." She stood straight again. "It's no different for you. He told me about the restaurant too." She snickered. "I mean, in what world could you ever see Steve willingly wanting to own and manage a restaurant, have a normal life?"

"We're not doing that anymore," Danny grumbled.

"Oh no?"

"Yea, he – long story short, he had this crazy dream after meeting his grandfather's best friend and solved a case in his sleep that his grandfather had been working on before Pearl Harbor and that's what made him realize he didn't want to really be in the restaurant business anymore" Danny shook his head; he still couldn't believe Steve had solved a 70 year old case while he snoozed away. Typical. "My realization was merely based in self-preservation and not wanting to die from a stroke or a heart attack trying to run that place."

"So, really what you're saying is that when Steve gave you an out, you took it and ran with it rather than stick it out because you didn't want to manage or own that place without him."

"I… yes, that's partially it, I mean – Cath, have you ever tried to get a restaurant up and running? Believe me, you'll yearn for bullets flying past your head and interrogating low lives, anything that will keep you away from electrical contractors and dry wall construction and paint and type face choosing, oh, and the _thousands of dollars_ you sink into the damn thing!"

"And when Steve didn't want to do that anymore, you didn't want to either." Cath shrugged, leaning comfortably against a post column. "What made you want to run a restaurant anyway?"

Danny sighed. Loudly. 20 Questions was getting boring, and he could feel himself getting twitchy, though for the life of him, he didn't know why. "I was thinking about retiring and was looking to do something after Five-0 and Steve…" Danny blinked. "Steve, uh… he wanted me to name the restaurant after him, and…"

_"Argy-bargy?" Steve, having never been married to a British National before, had no idea what that term meant. Danny, however, had heard the term a fair amount during his marriage to Rachel._

_"You know, an argument, the constant bickering you two engage in," Harry clarified. "Don't get me wrong, it clearly comes from a place of love, that's why you're going into the restaurant trade together," Harry looked between Danny and Steve. "You can't bear to be apart, right?"_

Danny heard his name being called and looked up, seeing Catherine still looking at him, a soft expression on her face. "Yea," was the only answer she was given. She seemed to have realized that something clicked in Danny's brain. Instead of pushing him further, Cath merely reclaimed her seat on the bench while he did the same on top of the table. It wasn't long before the door opened again and Steve emerged, carrying a pail and a towel. Danny watched him closely, saw the single-minded focus on his partner's features. Everything – his mind, his sight, his body, his hands – everything was working in consort towards one goal right now.

Danny just hoped Steve didn't get lost in it.

"You uh, you done?" Danny watched Steve dip his hands into the water bucket, washing the blood from them. "With that? Because taking in this fresh mountain air is a little difficult with the screaming and the crying."

Steve just looked at him and went on about his business. "Hassan's in Vientiane, in Laos."

"That's good, so you just tell somebody at the CIA, they do what they gotta do, and problem solved right?" Danny looked up at him, hoping, pleading that it could end here, but no such luck. And deep down, he knew that and Catherine just giving a barely there shake of her head confirmed it. "What, were you just gonna go to Laos? We, we're gonna go to Laos, you want me to go to Laos? Is that what this is?" And damn right he was throwing himself into this. Steve didn't have a choice, not in this. The man had kept Danny at arm's length for far too long and the results of that were not good, to say the least. Steve was washing off all the evidence of that in the bucket.

"Uh, we are going to Laos," Catherine stated, looking up at him. And wonderful, chalk that up to one more thing she hadn't bothered to mention while they'd been ambling about nature's waiting room.

"It's ten thousand miles away, and I assume your guy has like, a real security team, like a good one?" Danny was happy to paint a dire picture of obstacles if it would get Steve to stand down. Unlikely that he would, but Danny had to try. "There's three of us, and I don't even have a passport, so I can't go."

"Oh, we're not flying commercial," Catherine ever so helpfully pointed out. Danny glanced down at her, realizing just how busy they'd been while they'd been here, and he'd been in Hawaii. If he needed anymore confirmation, Steve's assurance that there would be more than just the three of them involved in this little excursion sealed the deal. God, it hurt. He understood the reasons as Catherine had told him, but it hadn't stopped Steve from depending on him before. Would Danny have ever found out before now? Would he have ever received even so much as a phone call letting him know what was going down?

 _No_ , his mind supplied, _you wouldn't have_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny's plan was simple. Go home, sleep, and then get up early to meet Steve at his place just after his morning swim. He'd seen Steve do this before, try to move on as if nothing had happened, clamp down on his feelings, push through until he could successfully compartmentalize and get back to that some semblance of normal. But Danny wasn't going to allow him to do that this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Author’s Note_ : And if you look over here at this chapter, you will see a Danny Williams in his natural habitat; caring and mother-henning one Steve McGarrett and peering into his soul as only he can.
> 
> Cannon wise from what viewers were able to see, Steve has had no time to sit and process what happened in 9.11. We went straight from Steve, Danny, and Junior returning from Laos, to Grace winding up in a life-threatening car accident. 9.13 and 9.14, while both were extremely well written episodes, didn’t provide much in the way of insight either as to how Steve was handling the trauma surrounding Joe. So, this is my answer to all of that, this 11K word behemoth of a chapter. 
> 
> _Disclaimer: Hawaii Five-0, as well as the characters found within the series, are owned by CBS Productions, K/O Paper Products, and 101st Street Productions._

**Chapter 2**

**Hawaii Five-0**

It had been a week after their return from Laos. Steve, as Danny knew he would, returned to work as if nothing had happened. They'd gotten in from Laos on a Monday and Steve had been back at Five-0 Headquarters the following Tuesday. Danny had, by and large, left Steve alone for the week, letting his partner catch up on paper work and emails and phone calls. The days were slow, thankfully, with only one active case and Lou took Tani and Junior with him to handle it. When Friday finally came, Steve sent the team home early at 3:00pm and cut out a half hour later, leaving Danny at headquarters to finish up a few odds and ends that had been put on the back burner since his impromptu trip across the Pacific.

Danny's plan was simple. Go home, sleep, and then get up early to meet Steve at his place just after his morning swim. He'd seen Steve do this before, try to move on as if nothing had happened, clamp down on his feelings, push through until he could successfully compartmentalize and get back to that some semblance of normal. But Danny wasn't going to allow him to do that this time.

He knew Steve wasn't sleeping. His partner hadn't shaved since they'd returned. Danny had to force lunch on the man and even then, Steve only ate maybe half of what Danny bought him. Maybe if Steve were 20 years younger, he could survive the way he had been used to surviving, trained to survive, but being on the closer side to 45, Danny knew what had worked in the past was not going to work now.

When Danny finally got home, he called Grace and Charlie, needing to hear their voices a little bit more than usual this week. While Charlie was still too young to understand that there had been a serious purpose to his father leaving the country for a few days, Grace had become much more shrewd over the years. It didn't matter how much he and Rachel tried to protect her from his job or from the issues that arose with him being part of Five-0; Grace had always been particularly perceptive when it came to her father.

_"Is Uncle Steve okay?"_

"Yea," Danny answered after a beat, "he's fine, Grace. Why do you ask?"

_"I haven't heard from him since Monday when you guys got back. We usually text throughout the week, but I sent him a text asking if I could hang out with him sometime this weekend and I didn't hear anything back."_

Danny pushed away the anger that bubbled up at Steve ignoring his daughter. "Uncle Steve's had a rough month, Monkey."

_"Why?"_

She's not seven anymore, Danny reasoned with himself. "He lost someone very, very close to him. Joe White; do you remember him?"

 _"Yea,"_ he heard Grace swallow over the phone, _"he was like an uncle to Uncle Steve, wasn't he?"_

"Yea, Monkey, he was. Joe saw him through the Academy, through BUD/S, through SEAL's. Steve knew Joe most of his life."

_"Can I see him? Maybe if I go over to his house tomorrow and surprise him, it'll make him feel better?"_

"I'm actually going over to his place tomorrow morning. Why don't you let me feel him out and then if he's up for some more company, you can come over."

They chatted for a few more minutes before saying good night and hanging up, Danny promising he would call no matter what tomorrow afternoon to update Grace on the situation with her uncle. It honestly made Danny's heart skip that his daughter was so observant as to know that something wasn't right with his partner. It absolutely didn't make him think on Catherine's words to him more than a week previous that he and Steve were in love and in denial all at once.

Yes, they were very involved in each other's lives. Yes, Steve drove Danny's car and knew how he liked his steak and Danny may have started to keep grass fed butter in his house for Steve to put in his coffee. Maybe there were more pancake breakfast mornings with Steve and the kids when they all stayed the weekend at Steve's place so Grace and Charlie could surf and swim. But did that really mean that they were harboring feelings for each other on a romantic scale?

Danny was pretty sure he'd know if he was in love with someone, let alone a guy, let alone _Steve_.

He got ready for bed, set the alarm on his phone, and climbed under the sheets, punching his pillow a few times to get comfortable. Tomorrow, one way or the other, Steve was going to deal with everything that had happened in the last six weeks.

**Hawaii Five-0**

Danny let himself into Steve's house quietly, taking care to lock the door behind him and reset the alarm. It was 6:30 in the morning and if Steve kept to his normal schedule, that meant he should be finishing up his morning swim pretty soon. Danny made his way out onto the lanai, hands in his pockets as he cased the morning surf in front of him, searching the waves for arms and a head poking out every other stroke. Except, he couldn't find that.

As he walked closer to the shore, Danny's mind noticed that something else was missing; Eddie. The detective knew that Eddie waited faithfully by the chairs every morning for Steve to emerge from the ocean, because right after that was breakfast time. "Eddie!" Danny whistled, walking around the yard and looking for the pup. "Eddie, come on out, buddy." But Eddie didn't come, didn't respond to Danny's calls.

"Okaaay," Perplexed, Danny headed back into the house and shut the back door. "Steve?"

No answer. But Danny had seen the Silverado outside. Maybe Steve had gone for a run? Sometimes Steve changed up his exercise routine and it wasn't unheard of for the SEAL to trade an hour lap in the ocean for a five-mile run around the neighborhood or on the beach. "Babe, you here?" He listened for a few seconds before hearing what sounded like scratches against a door or the floor. So, Eddie was here. That meant Steve was here too, more than likely. Danny took the stairs up and made his way to Steve's door, knocking softly on it. "Steve? Babe, you in there?"

When Danny cracked the door open, his heart sank at what he saw. Eddie was in there, of course, tail wagging and tongue out, happily greeting him as Danny pushed his way slowly into the room. The dog nudged Danny's leg a few times before hopping back on the bed to settle next to his master – his master who was still lying in bed on his side, facing away from Danny, curled in on himself. Danny called his friend's name softly as he walked around the bed, but instead of getting a response from Steve, he watched as Eddie pawed his way up the mattress and licked at Steve's face.

Danny had never seen Steve like this before, not even when Catherine left those years before. He'd been a little more maudlin, more withdrawn, but Danny had never seen an utterly depressed and defeated Steve McGarrett in the nine years he'd known him. It wasn't an image that he could even wrap his mind around. He reached a hand out and rested it on Steve's bear arm, taking a deep breath when Steve looked up at him with glassy eyes.

"Aw, babe," Danny's heart broke. It was clear Steve hadn't slept much if at all the previous night. He hadn't shaved, it didn't even look like he'd been out of bed, and he looked haggard. "What are you doing in here, huh?" He didn't expect an answer from the man, and instead set to tugging back the covers. "C'mon, stand up."

Steve reminded Danny of a docile and sick child as he led his partner into the in-suite bathroom and set up a toothbrush with some tooth paste and handed it to Steve to use, which he did. Danny was waiting with a cap full of mouth wash for him to rinse with when he was finished, and after that, he was pushing Steve to sit on the toilet. The beard wasn't nearly as bad as the full-on mountain man growth Steve had managed to cultivate during his time in Montana, but Danny had no intentions of letting his partner get anywhere close to that beard length ever again. Down that path lay a Steve that Danny never wanted to see again, much as he loved the guy.

Grabbing a wash cloth, he dampened Steve's face gently, all the while absorbing a look of mixed confusion, gratitude, and yielding, as if Steve knew it was pointless to argue with Danny and that he should simply sit back and let him do this. Soon enough, Steve's beard was being gently eliminated hair by hair by a detective muttering about him needing to take better care of himself, needing to eat, wanting him to get some sleep, and other things that Danny was sure were going through one ear and out the other currently. Danny didn't begrudge the man that at all; he just needed something to fill the morbid silence.

"There you go, all done," Danny took another wash cloth in hand, rinsed it in warm water, and folded it over Steve's face until the last bit of shaving cream had been wiped away. "Feel better, huh?" Steve actually nodded and rubbed at his eyes, tired and in pain, and just so done with the world. Danny let a hand rest against his friend's face before tugging at his arm and leading him back into the room. "Alright, come on, back in bed."

Danny pulled the covers back and helped Steve under the sheets before divesting himself of his sneakers and jeans and shooing Eddie down to the foot of the bed so that he could climb in and settle behind Steve. "Try to get some sleep, babe, okay?" He rested about a foot away from Steve, maybe a little more, his head on a pillow as he watched the back of the head of the man lying in front of him.

"You'll be here?" Steve's voice was quiet, gravel rumbling about in the throat, and there was something in the tone that made Danny scoot closer and wrap an arm around Steve's waist. "Yea, Steve. I'll be here. I promise."

**Hawaii Five-0**

Danny slowly woke out of warm, sleepy haze to feel something nosing at his calf. Eddie. The dog probably wanted to go out, especially if he hadn't been out since before Danny had gotten to the house. Sunlight was spilling into the room, bright and full of life, and so warm; it didn't even bother Danny all that much. Beside him, Steve had managed to roll over and currently had his face pushed against Danny's chest. He was sleeping soundly, torso expanding evenly with every deep breath, and Danny let himself watch his partner for a precious few minutes before Eddie made his needs known again. "Alright, buddy," the blonde carefully extracted himself from Steve's bed, pulled on his jeans, and padded out of the room and down the stairs, opening up the back door and letting Eddie run outside to do his thing. The poor pup probably hadn't eaten breakfast yet either, so Danny rummaged around in the fridge until he found some Fresh Pet and poured a healthy amount in a bowl, ready for when Eddie came running back into the house. Soon after that he was brewing coffee while taking stock of the edible human food to be found in the fridge, which wasn't much.

"Why am I not surprised," Danny muttered, shutting the door and heading for the pantry. He found some pancake mix that only called for water and eggs and set to whipping up breakfast. Thankfully, he found bacon in the freezer and threw plenty of strips into the frying pan. The kitchen smelled like Zippy's on a Saturday morning, and when Danny heard feet hit the flooring above his head and the toilet flush, he grabbed Steve's usual coffee mug and spoon, filled the mug with coffee, and dug out the butter from the fridge, readying everything by the time his partner made it down the stairs.

"Hey," Danny slid the mug towards Steve, the butter following afterwards. "How you feeling?" His only answer was a shrug as Steve stirred some of the butter into his coffee. Danny would never understand that, but, hey – it was Steve's coffee and he could mix it however he pleased. He began to fish some of the bacon out of the pan, pressing the strips down between paper towels to drain the grease before plating them. "Here, eat some of that," Danny slid the dish onto the food prep table and stared at Steve until he picked up a strip and started nibbling at it. Yes, Danny was over bearing when he was in care-giver mode.

No, he didn't care. Not one bit.

"I figure later on today we can run to the grocery store, fill up your fridge. It's looking pretty pathetic, babe." Danny took a spatula and lifted a pancake out of the pan and onto one of two plates before heading to the pantry to grab the syrup. "I barely had enough eggs to make these up," he slid the plate towards Steve, set the syrup next to it, and laid a fork and knife on either side. Steve just looked at him, blinking like a wide-eyed child.

"What are you looking at me for, huh? Eat. You probably didn't even have dinner last night, and if you did, it was crap."

"It was fine," Steve mumbled, picking up the syrup and lathering the fluffy hot pancakes with it.

"Really? If I check your trash can, what am I gonna find in there? I know you when you get like this, Steve," Danny pointed the spatula at him, just like his grandmother used to do with him and his siblings. "You actually go so low as to get Burger King. If I go over and look in the garbage, $20.00 says I see a Whopper wrapper in there."

Steve shifted on one foot, then the other, huffed frustration out of his nose, not meeting Danny's gaze.

Score again.

Scratching from the back door announced Eddie's return and Danny stepped over to let him in, setting down a bowl of food next to Steve's legs for the pup to eat. After greeting Steve warmly with a cold nose and a tail that sounded like a battering ram as it knocked back and forth into the cabinet doors, Eddie tucked into his own breakfast, and with far more enthusiasm than Steve was.

"Good?" Danny watched Steve out of the corner of his eye. A life time of watching over sick siblings and moody children prepared him well for taking care of his partner, and he knew he wasn't going to get much more than the soft 'yea' Steve offered him. That the man was even out of bed and being quarter of the way social after what he'd gone through was a miracle in and of itself. Danny was certain if anyone else had gone through the hell Steve had in the past month or so that they'd have deteriorated into a depressive, catatonic mess. Then again, Steve hadn't exactly been far off from that when Danny had gotten there earlier.

Danny plated the rest of the bacon after straining the grease and set it on the island between himself and Steve, who had gone through about half of the pancakes but was now beginning to push his breakfast through the syrup, making tracks on the plate. "Charlie does that when he's finished and I won't let him up from the table," Danny nonchalantly announced. He couldn't help but smile inwardly at the look Steve gave him. "Gives me mean faces too; you sure you're not related to my kid?"

The joke hardly cracked a smile from his partner and Danny sighed. "Grace asked about you last night. Wanted to know if you would mind her coming over today, if you would be up to that."

He wasn't expecting Steve to freeze as if he'd been caught red handed dumping grenades into Danny's glove box. "Steve?"

"I… what?"

"Grace? She's worried about you. So am I. She wanted to come by later today and see you, check up on you, but I told her to wait till I talked to you."

"Grace?" Steve swallowed. Danny frowned. Something very strange was going on here. It was like Steve didn't recognize who he was talking about.

"Grace, my daughter Grace? Tall, sweet, innocent angel that she is, or that I hope and pray she is? Hey," Danny moved around the island the second Steve's head dropped and his fork clattered to the plate. "Steve, what's wrong?" He slid a hand onto Steve's neck, squeezing it gently; his partner shook his head.

"You want Grace here, with me."

"What are you talking about, of course I want Grace here with you. I told you she's worried about you, didn't I? She wants to see you, she's hardly heard from you all week, she knows you're hurting-"

"But what I _did_ , Danny, what you saw," Steve ground out. "You're… you – I can see her?"

Danny simply stared at Steve, trying to piece together what the man was talking about, and when it finally dawned on him what Steve was asking, Danny's grip on the man's neck became that much firmer. He guided Steve's gaze to his with gentle fingers on the SEAL's chin. "Listen to me. Did I like seeing what you'd done? Hearing and seeing what you did? No, okay? No more than you liked watching me put a bullet between Marco Reyes's eyes. You were in pain, you were grieving, you'd watched a man who was like a father to you get murdered, watched your team mates be murdered…Steve, you did what you had to do, and I might not like the way you did it, but that's because of what it's doing to you right now."

"I'm…I'm okay, Danny, I-"

"You're asking me if I want you around my kids, Steve, because of what happened. You're asking me if I want you to stay away from my kids. You're not okay, babe." Danny shook his head, a sad smile. "You're not okay. You're so far from okay you're going to need a road map to get back to okay. And it's okay to _not_ be okay right now, you understand that? It's expected for you to not be okay, Steve."

God, it hurt looking at Steve, seeing him like this, so broken and hurt and lost. "You have to grieve, Steven. Okay? You have to, you have to give yourself that time to miss Joe, and be angry that he's gone, and cry over him, mourn him. And you have _got_ to forgive yourself." He held Steve's gaze until he was sure the message had gotten through. "You want any more food?"

Steve shook his head.

"Why don't you go back upstairs with Eddie? I'll be up in a little bit, gonna clean up down here first, okay?"

He sent Steve off, once again reminded of a too-exhausted-to-argue child being put to bed before their normal time. It didn't take Danny long to wash the dishes and wipe down the stove before he was heading up the stairs and knocking softly on Steve's door, pushing his way slowly inside once Steve told him to come in. "So," Danny slipped his hands in his pockets, standing in front of his partner who was currently sitting on the side of the bed while Eddie rested on the floor at his feet. Steve looked up at him. "You want to see Grace at all today or hold off until tomorrow?"

The only warning Danny got that Steve was about to fall apart was his own name on a strangled whisper before the heels of Steve's hands were against his eyes, trying to keep the tears inside. He'd upgraded to full on sobbing by the time Danny had wrapped his arms around his shoulders and tucked his partner's head against his stomach. And Danny did the only thing he could do in that moment; he murmured soft assurances to Steve that everything was going to be alright, he wasn't going to be alone in this. Danny would help him, Danny would be there with him every single step of the way.

"Come on, lay down," Danny nudged Steve gently, but he was only met with resistance as Steve pushed his head further against Danny's front, which was putting some decidedly uncomfortable pressure on his sternum. "Babe, you keep doing that and you're gonna push my insides right out," Danny stood up a little straighter and dragged his hands around to Steve's face, pushing him back carefully and looking down at him with soft understanding. "You're emotionally exhausted, Steven, okay? You need sleep."

It was only natural for Danny to wipe at the wet beneath Steve's eyes with his thumbs, to look down and gauge the man sitting in front of him. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he soothed the skin of Steve's cheeks with ease. "Anybody ever tell you you've got eyelashes women would kill for?" His heart jumped at the short bark of laughter that was his response and gestured for him to lay back with his chin. "C'mon, lay down."

Danny barely caught his name, muffled under Steve's breath, but he caught it. "Hmm?"

"I was…. Do you have plans? Today? I mean…"

Danny heard the real question clear as day. "Just to stick around here, catch up on some sleep myself." He saw relief reflected back at him through Steve's eyes, still swimming in fatigued and unshed tears, but damn if that wasn't a gift to hold close to the heart; Steve showing weakness, vulnerability, asking in his own way for Danny to stay with him.

Danny shed his jeans once more and climbed into the bed, amused to find that Eddie had followed both his and Steve's lead and was now lying at the foot of the mattress, curled up on Steve's side and watching both men with curious eyes.

"Thanks for taking care of Eddie this morning."

"Well, it was either that or watch him pee all over your house," Danny smiled at him. "And while that would've been pretty amusing under normal circumstances, I figured I could be magnanimous just this once."

Steve cracked a smile. Danny was pleased once more. "Just you and me today, Steve, okay? If you want to sleep all day, cry, talk, whatever you do when you grieve, you do that. I'll be here."

Steve nodded his head, scooting a little closer Danny's way and dragging his pillow with him. For a long while they simply looked at each other, Danny reaching out a comforting hand whenever Steve turned his face into his pillow to hide his tears or get control of himself. Eventually, they both fell asleep, hands having migrated towards each other's to clasp and hold tight.

**Hawaii Five-0**

"Joe liked you."

Danny's eyes fluttered open. He was still in a sleepy haze, having only woken up a few minutes ago when Steve had gotten up to go to the bathroom. Now, his partner was walking back around the bed and climbing back in under the covers, being careful not to poke at Eddie too much with his feet. The dog was still snoozing away at the foot of the bed. "He liked your honesty, liked that you didn't really have a filter – you just said what was on your mind and if someone didn't like it, too bad."

"All except for that time with Operation: Strawberry Fields." Danny couldn't help but snicker at that, and he was happy to see Steve huff a laugh into his pillow too.

"Yea, talking about a highly classified spec/ops mission on a military base probably wasn't your finest first impression, but he got over that."

Silence for a few more moments before Danny spoke again. "I need to know that you know that what happened to Joe wasn't your fault, Steve." He leveled a gaze at him, studying his partner carefully and seeing the signs of recoil, of argument bubbling to the surface. "No," Danny softly murmured, scooting closer towards Steve. "No, Steve. It wasn't. You did everything you could, everything you knew how to do. Sometimes, there's nothing you can do."

"He wouldn't let me." Steve's voice was quiet; Danny barely heard him.

"What do you mean?"

"He wouldn't – we were on the horses, we were trying to get to the copter. I'd called a med evac copter and Joe called it off. He… he canceled it." The anguish was spilling out from his eyes again. "Why, why did he do that, I don't – I can't understand why he would do that, why he'd want to die, why he wanted to leave."

 _Me_ , Danny thought the last word to that sentence in his head. _Why he wanted to leave me_. Danny didn't blame him one bit for that thought either. Too many people in Steve's life who were supposed to stick around and see him through had bounced in one way or the other. "I don't think that decision had anything to do with you, Steve. You know Joe saw and did a lot of stuff, probably lots of things that would make a lot of people want to drop off the face of the planet, maybe some stuff he wasn't exactly proud of. He lived a fairly good life, I guess. I don't know, I didn't know him as well as you did, but he was getting up there in age and maybe he uh, maybe he just decided to cut his losses. Maybe he died exactly the way he wanted to."

"In pain, exhausted, alone? Shot up and bleeding out?"

"No." Danny shook his head. "With you, at his ranch, under a clear blue sky with nothing around for miles but mountains and grass. When you told me about that place a while back, you said Joe got it as a vacation spot, a retreat, some place he could go where no one would ever be able to find him."

Danny could see Steve pondering that analysis, rolling it around in his brain. "You know I lied to him, told him that I hadn't told anybody about the ranch, not even you?"

"Pretty sure he didn't believe that, babe," Danny grinned.

"No, probably not." Steve rolled on his back, staring at the ceiling for a few minutes. "What time is it?"

"You were the one that got up to go to the bathroom, you didn't think to check the time?" But Danny was rolling over and grabbing for his cell phone. "2:00pm." He plopped the phone down on his chest. "What we should really do is head to the store and stock up your fridge. It's like a desert in there."

Danny could see immediately that the last thing Steve wanted to do was head to the store. "Or we can do that tomorrow if you want, just stay here today, order take out."

"I'm sorry, Danny."

The apology caught Danny off guard. He lifted his head, tilted it a bit, looking at Steve in confusion. "For not wanting to go to the store?"

"For not calling you sooner after everything happened, for not calling you period," Steve continued to lay on his back, blinking up at nothing above him. "For not letting you know what I was planning on doing, letting you in on it."

Danny's brow furrowed. How did Steve know-

"Cath?" He asked gently. Steve nodded.

"She uh, she explained why that might have been," Danny sighed, choosing to leave out the more romantic explanations she'd given for why Steve had neglected to include him on the operation. "I think I understand."

"It wasn't because I didn't trust you or because I didn't think you couldn't handle what we were doing-"

"Steve-"

"-or because I didn't want you there. I mean, I _didn't_ want you there, but not for the reasons you think or-"

"Steve, stop." Danny rolled on to his stomach and slid a hand over Steve's mouth, pausing his commentary for the time being. "You don't have to explain. I get it. It didn't sit well with me at first, which is why I came to the ranch in the first place – to check on you, make sure you hadn't done anything too crazy which, in hindsight I now understand was a complete case of wishful thinking on my part." Danny slid his hand to Steve's neck when he was sure his partner wasn't going to interrupt him. "Cath and I had a lot of time to talk about some things and some of the stuff she said made sense. So. Don't do that, okay? Don't hang onto to that. I don't want you to do that, not for me. Alright?"

Steve was too busy staring at him, hazel eyes filled with gratitude and warmth and love, and something that looked like… realization? Recognition? But what that could be, Danny could only guess at. He knew he'd been having some insights of his own since his talk with Catherine, but now was not the time to get into that subject.

"We didn't… Catherine and me, I mean, we didn't…"

Danny felt his eyebrows trying to crawl off of his head. "You'd just lost Joe and you were in the middle of playing enhanced interrogation tactics 101 with Thomsen, babe. I didn't think you had."

"I just needed you to know," Steve swallowed, and Danny felt the man's throat move under his hand, felt the ripple of Steve's muscles beneath his fingers.

It was a nice neck, Danny thought. A strong neck, with a beautiful throat, one that begged to be marked and loved on.

Jesus Christ, he had to get out of the bed before he did something wholly inappropriate.

"You and Catherine seemed okay."

Dragging his hand back to himself, Danny nodded. "Yea, we're okay. We had a lot of time to talk in Montana that day. After we left, not so much, but I guess we got out what we needed to say to each other." A bit of a scorned laugh escaped him. "I'm still angry at her for leaving you the way she did, lying to you about it after I basically begged her to stick around. Not sure I'll ever let that go, but it's… I don't know, it's easier to accept now." He watched Steve roll onto his side and tuck his arm under the pillow, getting comfortable.

"I told you she shot Greer."

Danny nodded.

"I know I called her to help out with Thomsen. I knew she could get me what I needed with him, but I also think the CIA sanctioned her trip. I think they knew she was coming to help out and they gave her a kill order."

Danny thought about the plausibility of that for a few quiet moments. "Well," he sighed, "it wouldn't surprise me. The CIA is pretty cut throat. The woman was responsible for at least five of their agents dying, she'd slipped through their fingers more times than they'd care to admit, she was operating under their noses for who knows how long selling intelligence to some of our biggest enemies. Yea, I can see that. Cath's good at her job, I won't ever take that away from her. We all wanted a piece of Greer; she was the one who got it." Danny looked at Steve. "Does that bother you?"

"It bothers me that Greer's dead. It bothers me that I'll never know why she did what she did. When Cath and I caught up with her in China, she said that there were other reasons besides the money for doing what she did. I don't know, from the tone in her voice, the way she was looking at me, it sounded like maybe some of those reasons had to deal with me, with us, from back in Morocco."

"You think she went rogue because you didn't stick around for her after a hot weekend?" Danny snorted derisively. "If that's the case, talk about your bad clichés."

"Yea, I don't know," Steve shrugged, his gaze falling to the crook of Danny's neck and shoulder wedged against his own pillow. "I hope I'm not part of the reason she turned against her country, killed her own people. I don't… how do I deal with that?"

"You don't," Danny answered. "You don't because there is no reason good enough for anyone to betray the people they serve with day in and day out, and definitely, _definitely_ not because a relationship didn't go the way they wanted it to go. That's just… that's a no, Steve. Regardless of how she felt about how you two ended things, that is no excuse for what she did. It's not. And if you don't mind me saying, I think you and women in the CIA are just a bad mix, and you should probably stay away from every woman who's ever worked with those people."

"My mother works with the CIA."

"Your moth - what are you talking about? You don't have a choice in who your mother is Steven, okay? I'm talking about relationship wise here, babe. Don't think I didn't see what Harry was trying to pull."

"Yea, that was a little unnecessary," Steve groaned. More like really unnecessary and more than a little uncomfortable. "Though he did enjoy shopping for a dress for Catherine."

"Yea?"

"S'what I heard."

"They wouldn't make such a bad couple, now that I think about it," Danny brushed at his hair, which had to be a mess by now with as much sleeping and laying down as he'd done the whole day. "Both spies, both still in the game, Cath a little more so. Both of them understand that kind of life, enjoy it-"

"Danny?"

"What?"

"Please stop," Steve groaned, "I'm not saying I disagree, but… just, the whole 'with Harry' thing…"

"What's the matter with Harry?"

"Nothing's the matter with him."

"Harry Langford is a pretty classy guy. He took a lady to a shrimp truck for dinner, that kind of thing is right up your alley."

Steve rolled his eyes. "He took her to Kamekona's because we couldn't even get a damn appetizer out of the oven on time that night, which is still your fault by the way."

 _"My fault!?"_ Danny was sufficiently scandalized.

"Yea, your fault. If you'd have let me help around in the kitchen, my kitchen, the kitchen I grew up in and know very well, if you had listened to me about how long it takes to heat up the oven, we would've been able to serve them dinner on time, but no-"

"That is the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard," Danny's face was a mix of indignation and amazement. "You told me we had more than enough time to go out and get the ingredients for the dinner before we had to be back to pre-heat the oven!"

"That was before you took half a century grocery shopping, Danny!"

The continued back and forth, the familiar banter, the soothing 'argy bargy' as Harry Langford liked to call it put Steve back into familiar territory, where the ghost of Joe White wasn't hanging quite so heavily around his eyes and soul, and where Danny could simply bask in the amused and fond look Steve had on his face whenever they had their little back and forth arguments.

"Look at this, we've been lying in bed for half an hour arguing like a married couple," Danny sat up and pushed his hair back again. "You want to get up? Do something?"

Steve was still lying on his side, looking up at Danny with a thoughtful expression. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to go to the store," he finally relented.

"You sure? We don't have to."

"We should. I need to stock up, get Eddie some more food. I don't even have food here for the kids when they come over." Steve pushed himself up to sit beside Danny for a few quiet moments before taking a breath and swinging his legs out of bed. Danny watched him as he got dressed before following suit, looking around for his jeans. Eddie, sensing activity was about to happen, perked up and began thumping his tail against the mattress. Danny shrugged; why not? "You want to bring Eddie with us?"

Steve looked genuinely touched that Danny had thought of that.

"Yea," Steve nodded. "Let's bring him."

**Hawaii Five-0**

The run to the store only took about an hour and a half, for which Danny was grateful. Steve might not admit it, but Danny could tell by the time they got back to the house and dragged all of the bags into the kitchen that his partner was tired just from that little bit of effort.

Depression could do that to a person. Danny knew that all too well.

"Just after 4:00pm. What do you say to ordering in pizza, drinking some beer, and watching the game?" Danny was stuffing all manner of juices and protein shakes into Steve's fridge while the SEAL picked at some cherry tomatoes he'd bought. "From where?"

"That new pizza joint opened up a few miles away. They uh, they have a deep-dish Chicago style pizza I want to try. Lou said it was pretty good; obviously not the real thing, but we're not gonna get the real thing so long as we're both on this rock. But," Danny closed the fridge and opened the freezer, starting in on emptying another bag, "that is inevitable and we both understand that, and so we deal with what you island people come up with as best we can."

Steve finished chewing. "It's the deep-dish that you like the pineapple on, right?"

"Steven," Danny growled. "If there is pineapple on my pizza when it gets here…" He left the threat unfinished, rather enjoying Steve's half way goofy smile as he dug his cell phone out of his pocket. "What's the name of the place?"

After searching the name on his phone and calling the restaurant, Steve was informed that it would be about 45 minutes to an hour for the pizzas to arrive, and he went ahead and added on some barbecue and buffalo chicken wings too, because why not? And it was when he started adding things that Danny piped in with, "Hey, grab some of the cheese bread too. Oh, and they have this humongous chocolate chip cookie cake thing. Buy one."

"Do I look like Hansel to you? You trying to fatten me up or something?" But Steve did as he was bid, as he often did when Danny was involved, and he hung up the phone while trying not to think of all of the calories Danny was going to make him consume that evening.

"You've been subsisting off of Whoppers and ramen noodles for the last week, and God only knows what you ate up in Montana. Knowing you, you probably devolved to our ancestors hunting and gathering days and picked berries off the bushes at the ranch."

"There were no bushes," Steve snorted, "just lots of trees. Joe had a lot of meat stored up… you know, he liked to hunt and… just live off the land, I guess."

"He seemed like he'd be that kind of guy," Danny commented, tossing frozen vegetables, some tv dinners which were considered to be on the healthier side, and frozen waffles and pancakes into the freezer, for mornings where they had a case and there was no time to make an actual healthy breakfast. "I had some friends that used to go hunting on their weekends off, mostly deer, sometimes pheasant when it was the season for it." He turned and discarded a second bag, all the while watching Steve as the man tried to put his thoughts into words.

"When we were getting ready to engage with Hassan's men, he told me that I shouldn't wait to find someone to share my life with. And I just think that maybe that kind of life, just being a… a cowboy I guess, on a ranch out in the middle of nowhere with the wife and kids was what Joe really wanted all along. He was just never able to get it."

"Why do you think that is?"

Steve took a breath. "His job was really important to him, Danno. The Navy was his life, just like it was mine for a while. Now Five-0 is my life, but Joe… even when the Navy forced him to retire, he never really 'retired' from the military. All of the contacts he'd built throughout the government allowed him to do some classified security and police work. He didn't know how to sit still, how to settle down, have a normal life." He tossed another tomato in his mouth.

Danny sensed the undercurrent of similarity Steve must have felt his life held with Joe's. "You think you're the same way?"

"Sometimes," his partner muttered. "Sometimes, like with Cath, before she left, I had the idea in my head that I could have the normal life – the wife, the kids, coming home to Cath with a smile on her face, taking the kids to school, out for shave ice, the whole thing. And now I wonder if that was just wishful thinking on my part or if I was reading something into our relationship that wasn't there or if I'm just not meant to have all of that. That I'll end up like Joe with three marriages under my belt and a woman in the African hot that'll never see me again because one of my missions ca- catches up with me," Steve swallowed the pain down and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. "Christ, I'm sitting here worried about what my life is going to be like, and Joe's dead – what the hell –"

"No, don't do that, come on," Danny made his way over, sliding his hand on Steve's back once more. He'd noticed Steve seemed to calm with a tactical approach and Danny was just fine with that. "Don't do that to yourself. You're allowed to feel like that, okay? You're allowed to feel about this however you feel. What you're not allowed to do is push it all away like it doesn't exist. I'm not gonna let you do that, Steve."

"I don't… I don't know how to _not_ do that," Steve whispered, stuttering it out. Danny gave him the time, didn't rush him. "We never had time for that in SEAL's, didn't have – _couldn't_ take the time. Time meant cost and cost meant lives and assets and we just – we couldn't."

"You're talking about Freddie?" Danny made the connection as easy as if he were playing Connect the Dots. He didn't know much about Freddie Hart, except that he'd been Steve's go-to partner in SEAL's and they'd served on the same team, and that Steve had lost him a few weeks before his father's murder. "You were doing better with that last time we talked about him."

"I was, yea. I am. I know there was nothing I could've done to save him, but I was never really able to… I guess to process… and then Dad was killed and I'm transferring into the Reserves and setting up Five-0, managing a team, learning how to keep you from having an aneurysm every time I got behind the wheel or made any kind of decision-"

"You never cease to amaze me with your revisionist history abilities."

"Well, I have a very particular skill set when it comes to you," Steve smiled a little at him. Danny didn't really know how to respond to that. It was a comment. Just another comment in a series of comments and looks and moments that he and Steve had had over the last nine years they'd been partnered together that could have been totally innocent or could mean more. It would be filed away like all the others were, kept safe until it was time to pull it back out again.

Danny had a feeling that time was nearing, but now wasn't the time to mention it.

"What kind of game did Joe hunt?" Deciding to get them back on track, get Steve back on track with talking through his memories of Joe, Danny headed back to the bags and continued putting everything away in the fridge and the pantry until they were done while Steve answered any other question about Joe that Danny could think of until the doorbell rang. Danny brought a six pack of Longboards and a couple of plates out to the living room and it wasn't long before he and Steve were chowing down on pizza, chicken wings, cheese bread, and the biggest cookie cake Steve had ever seen.

"I'm not eating that, I hope you know."

"You're having a piece," Danny pointed a piece of pizza at him, pointy end first before biting into it. "That is the epitome of comfort food, Steven. It's essential."

"It's bad enough I'm eating all of this right now, Danny. I haven't exactly been keeping up with my exercise regimen."

"It's cheese, bread, and chicken, Steven. It's not like you're eating a full stuffed pig or something," Danny put his slice down on his plate and reached across for one of Steve's classic Hawaiian slices. "Look. You eat a piece of the chocolate chip cookie, and I will eat a piece of this abomination you call pizza. And I would just like to impress upon you the devastation I feel in my very soul that I have to _bribe_ you to get you to eat what most everyone in the developed world considers one of the best desserts on the planet."

Well. Steve wasn't about to miss out on Danny eat Hawaiian pizza. He'd been waiting for this for nine years. A few more calories and extra minutes running or swimming was well worth the sacrifice. "Done." He leaned forward, tore off a large piece of the cookie cake, and stuffed it in his mouth, grinning at Danny.

"That's disgusting. You don't have to eat it like an animal, you know."

Danny should've just kept his mouth shut because that only made Steve chew more obnoxiously which gave Danny more of a show than he ever wanted. "Okay, alright, fine," he shoved the pizza slice in his mouth and took a bite. "Happy?"

"Yep," Steve swallowed and leaned back, watching Danny chew. Painfully. "C'mon, Danny. Swallow the pizza. It's good. You'll love it."

"I'm so glad you mentioned the word pizza, otherwise I might think you were talking about something else." Danny felt a little bit of victory at the look on Steve's face at that comment. Astonishment, mostly, mixed with something else that Danny wasn't in any hurry to name.

Over the next few hours, with a football game on in the background while they ate, Steve told Danny stories of Joe; of Joe training him in BUD/S, more about the mission where Steve's SEAL team had been assigned to take out Omar Hassan's father, the early days where Joe checked in on Steve while he was at boarding school and then the Naval Academy, and then recommended him for Naval Intelligence before steering him to the SEAL program. "Everything I am today is because of Joe," Steve murmured. "I'd have never joined the Navy, never done half of the things I'd done in my life if it weren't for him."

"You know, I know you and he didn't see eye to eye on some things, namely Doris, but you know Joe thought of you as a son, babe. He was really proud of you."

"He told me," Steve looked at Danny, giving him a smile. "While he – you know, while he was… he told me," Steve closed his eyes and leaned back against the sofa, suddenly looking exhausted. Danny examined him quietly before knocking his hand against his leg. "Why don't you go take a shower and I'll clean up down here."

"Won't take me that long to hop in and out-"

"Steve," Danny stood up and looked down at his partner. "None of your three-minute showers. Take a long one. Relax. I'll take care of stuff down here."

Danny ushered Steve upstairs, let Eddie out, and then began cleaning up the living room, taking all the food into the kitchen and boxing it up in Tupperware, putting it in the fridge for later. After washing the dishes and wiping down the counters, Danny grabbed his cell phone and two beers, let Eddie back in, and set the alarm before heading upstairs to knock on Steve's door.

"Steve, you good?" Not receiving an answer, he pushed the door open, walking in behind Eddie who sniffed out his master rather easily. Steve was on the lanai, freshly showered, pajama bottoms on and wearing no shirt. Danny could see his skin was still red and supposed his partner must have turned the water on hotter than normal.

The blonde stepped out onto the lanai and set a beer on the table next to Steve while he took a seat on one of the deck chairs and swiped right on his phone. Steve frowned, hearing the phone ring and realizing that Danny put it on speaker. "Who are you calling?"

Danny only smiled and waited for the other line to pick up.

_"Hi, Danno."_

"Hey Grace. Got someone here who wants to talk to you." Danny held the phone up for Steve to take, and for a moment, he was absolutely positive that Steve was going to collapse right there, but he watched as his partner gathered himself and took the phone, holding it halfway to his mouth. "Hey Gracie."

_"Hi, Uncle Steve. Are you okay?"_

"Yea, Gracie," Steve smiled at the phone, "I'm okay."

_"I was worried about you – you weren't responding much to my texts."_

"I know. I'm sorry about that. It's been kind of a rough few…-" Days, weeks, months? "I've had a rougher time than usual, but things are looking up now."

_"Danno told me about Joe. I'm really sorry, Uncle Steve. Dad said he was like a father to you."_

"Yea, we were… I've known him most of my life," Steve cleared his throat, "knew him, anyways. It's good to hear your voice though, Gracie. How are you doing, you doing okay in school? What's Charlie doing, is he okay?"

 _"Charlie's asleep, but he's doing okay. He had art class today and came home with paint all over his clothes. He had the smock on, but you know…"_ Steve could hear Grace roll her eyes over the phone and he couldn't help but laugh. "Boys are dirty, Grace. It's just a fact of life. I was the same way when I was his age."

_"You intentionally took red, yellow, and blue paint and tried to turn your clothes into a canvass?"_

"No, but I definitely rolled around in every puddle and mud pit I could find," Steve leaned against the railing.

_"That's so disgusting, Uncle Steve. That's how you get diseases."_

"No, that's how you build up tolerance against disease."

_"Well, that's not how Mom thinks. Charlie got scrubbed with this lemon soap she uses when she thinks we're too dirty. She wanted to make sure none of the chemicals from the paint seeped into his skin or something."_

Steve saw Danny wince and lifted a brow. "Is that bad?"

"It doesn't tickle," Danny muttered, "Rachel honest to God thinks the juice from the lemon has some extra cleaning capabilities. Her mom used it on her when she was a kid, said everyone used it in Medieval England or where ever they're from."

_"Dad!"_

"Sorry, Monkey!"

Steve couldn't help but laugh. This was exactly what he needed, to hear Grace's voice and talk about her day, and about Charlie and hear the shenanigans of paint and the other silly things kids did.

_"I was hoping I could come over and see you tomorrow, Uncle Steve. Maybe we can have lunch? I have some hamburgers and hot dogs I can bring over and I can grill them."_

Danny grinned. "She makes a mean burger, I'll give her that."

"Yea?" Steve met Danny's gaze, held it for a few seconds before remembering Grace needed an answer. "Lunch tomorrow sounds great, Gracie, but you can leave your stuff at home. Danny and I went grocery shopping earlier today, so we have everything here."

_"What kind of beef did you get?"_

Steve frowned. "The organic, grass fed 93% lean kind, the kind I always get."

The silence on the other end went for so long that Steve though the call had dropped. Danny new better and was biting his lip to keep from laughing at loud.

_"Yea, I'll… just bring my hamburger over. It's getting close to being out of date and I should really eat it as soon as I can. Anyways, I'll see you tomorrow – Danno, you'll be there too, right?"_

"Yep, I'll be here, Monkey. Kiss your brother for me, tell him I love him. Say hi to your mom for me, okay?"

_"Okay, Dad. Love you."_

"Love you too." Danny took the phone back, hit the end button, and dropped his chin to his chest, snickering quietly. Steve had such a look of adorable confusion on his face that it was hard to remember that he'd practically been on the verge of a catatonic state that very morning. "What?"

"What's wrong with my beef?"

The urge… the palpable urge to make an awful, horrible, inappropriate pun was so strong that Danny's lips played along each other, pressing and meshing as he attempted to get himself under control. And he hated puns for the record, but this one was just begging to-

"Wait, no," Steve jabbed a severe finger at him. "Do not."

"No idea what you're talking about babe," Danny quickly put his beer to his lips and took a long drink, watching Steve as he tipped the bottle back. He caught Steve muttering something under his breath about a dirty mind, and Danny only shrugged. "Why do I have a dirty mind?"

"Oh please, I knew where you were gonna go with that. I was in the Navy, okay? We invented dirty jokes."

"Enlighten me, please. Otherwise, I think it's you with the dirty mind, Steven." Was Danny flirting? _Absolutely_. Did Steve start it? _Yes_. Was this better than Steve moping about the house? _One hundred percent_. Danny didn't feel bad about it, not one bit. Unfortunately, instead of taking the bait, Steve just shook his head, laughed softly to himself and looked out over the ocean. It was peaceful, quiet. It almost reminded Danny of sitting on the porch at a beach house right on the Jersey Shore.

"You staying?"

"I thought I would, yea," Danny rolled the bottle between his hands. "I can crash in the guest room."

"You could," Steve nodded, taking another swig of his beer. He didn't say anything beyond that.

"I could," Danny rolled the words around in his mouth. Steve looked at him, a question on his face. "Well, it's just – you kinda said that like I could do that, or I could do something else. I hope you're not suggesting the couch."

"I'm not suggesting the couch."

Danny sized Steve up, shirtless chest and all. He was pretty sure his ears weren't deceiving him, nor his intuition, but he decided to make this easier on both of them while still allowing them both to save face if he was wrong. "Will you sleep better if I bunk with you?"

"I think I will, yea."

"Okay then." It was all settled in Danny's mind. They both continued to nurse their beers, listening to the sound of the waves lapping against the shore, to the night life calling out their territories.

"Danny?"

"Hm."

"When you said that Cath had explained why I hadn't called you, what did you mean?"

Danny looked up to see Steve picking at the label on his beer bottle. Interesting. "I mean that Cath gave me some insight on why you might not have wanted to call me." Danny heard and saw the frustrated sigh Steve gave and quirked a brow. "What are you asking me?"

"What did she tell you? Because I didn't really talk about it with her all that much. She asked where you where, if you were coming and I," he swallowed, "you know, I didn't say much to her about it, so I want to know what she said."

"You know what I think?"

Steve just looked at him.

"I think," Danny leaned forward, interlacing his fingers together, "that you have an idea of what she said, and you're looking for confirmation from me to see if she said it."

"Danny, what'd she tell you?"

"What do you think she told me?"

Steve's nostrils were flaring. It was adorable; Danny couldn't help himself. He grinned a wide slap-happy grin and stood up to lean against the railing. "C'mon, Steve. What do you think she told me?"

Steve rolled his eyes. He sighed heavily. His feet fidgeted on the lanai surface – all signs that he would tell Danny what he wanted to know. "The last time Catherine was here on the island, she asked about you, asked how you were doing and how the kids were doing. I told her you were all fine, doing great, that Grace was starting to learn how to drive and Charlie's latest craze was pretending to be a cop, just like his Danno. And we just kept talking about you guys, and she said that we sounded like a great little family."

"Ah-hah," Danny stuck his neck out just a bit, hands in his pockets. "And you said?"

"I told her that we were." Steve downed the last of his beer and walked back inside, leaving Danny on the lanai, but not for long. He gave Steve a few minutes, knowing that his partner had just tipped his hand willingly, that it had left him completely open to any reaction Danny might have.

It seemed Catherine hadn't been off her mark after all.

When he walked back into Steve's room, Danny found Steve sitting on the edge of the bed, hands clasped tightly together, head bowed over his legs. And this was a lot for Steve to deal with at the moment, Danny knew. In the last six weeks, Steve had been attacked in his home, had learned of the deaths of his SEAL team members, had fought for his life in an ambush in the middle of America's heartland and had lost two more of his SEAL mates, including the guy who had trained and raised him from the age of 16, had reached deep into the darkest parts of his soul and tortured a man to death to get information he needed to avenge Joe's death and that of his SEAL team, and had watched the woman who had helped set everything up die right in front of him, thanks to Catherine.

Now, tonight, he and Danny had come closer than they ever had to acknowledging the possibility that their friendship might not be completely platonic. It was a lot. It was too much. Danny padded across the floor to stand right in front of Steve. The latter didn't look up at him, but Danny didn't care; he simply wrapped a hand around the man's neck and tugged him forward so that Steve's head was resting against his belly.

"You need time to grieve and figure a lot of stuff out," Danny murmured softly. "When you've done all of that, we'll talk about some of the stuff Cath said and about some other things. But you need to deal with all of this other stuff first, babe."

"What other things?" It shouldn't have surprised Danny that Steve literally bypassed everything else Danny had said and focused on those two specific words, 'other things.'

"Us." He squeezed the back of Steve's neck before letting his hand fall and stepping back to shed his own shirt and jeans. "Come on. Bed."

Once they'd both visited the bathroom and gone through their respective nightly routines, Danny crawled into Steve's bed and settled on his side, watching as Steve did the same and turned towards him. Before the SEAL could say anything, Danny shook his head and gripped one of Steve's hands with his own.

"We've got time to talk, okay? All the time in the world. I'll be here in the morning, and Grace will be here for lunch. We'll spend the day together, all three of us; family time, okay?"

"Okay, Danny," Steve whispered so low Danny had to strain forward to hear him, and he didn't mind it at all when Steve took that as an invitation to slide closer towards him until less than a foot of space was between their heads. They watched each other for a long while. Sometimes Steve shifted a little closer or re-positioned his head on his pillow. Other times Danny caught himself shadowing his thumb over Steve's hand in time with their breathing, which had synced at some point; Danny wasn't sure when.

"You should go into business with Odell; you have a talent for shaving."

"Yea?" Danny's eyes smiled. "Clean and close, just like my Pops taught me."

"Yea." Steve pursed his lips. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you shave my face this morning?"

"You hadn't shaved in over a week."

"I like some stubble."

"You had more than just stubble, Steve." Danny propped himself up on an elbow, looking down at his partner, searching his face, watching Steve search his. "You're better clean shaven, or with a five o'clock shadow, with some stubble. That beard you had in Montana… that wasn't you, that was like a mountain man on steroids, babe."

"I didn't like it either," Steve rolled onto his back a little, shifting himself to lie just partially under Danny. "I didn't – I just let it go. Let myself go, I guess." Danny watched him swallow hard. "I didn't like it, Danny."

"Didn't like what?"

"The beard. What I did to Thomsen. How I felt after… feel after, I didn't enjoy any of-"

"I know you didn't, Steven. I know you didn't, hey," Danny hovered over him fully now, demanding Steve look at him. "I know you didn't, okay? I know you, you don't get pleasure out of hurting people, no matter what they've done to you."

He wasn't sure how his hand wound up on Steve's face, but there it was. Danny didn't see fit to move it and neither did Steve. The next time Danny spoke, his throat was tight, voice hoarse. "That beard scared the hell out of me, Steve, okay? You were right; you did let yourself go, and I get why you did it, I get where your head was at. I get it, I do. I don't blame you at all." His wide eyes held Steve's blown ones, like magnets unable to draw away from each other. "But I don't ever want to see it again, babe. I don't. And I'm going to do everything I can to make sure I don't, and if that means I lather you up and shave you myself? If that means I come over here and make you some food, and take you to the grocery store, and hold you while you sleep? If it means us pigging out on pizza and wings and beer and lying in bed together in the dark just talking? Then that's what it means. Okay?"

Steve blinked the glossiness out of his eyes, took a breath. "Okay, Danno."

"Okay," Danny released a breath and dropped his elbow, lying his head back on his pillow. "And next time something bad happens, big or small, you call me, you schmuck." He looked at Steve until a sharp nod was given. "Alright. Go to sleep."

As exhausted as Steve was, it didn't take him long to drop off under Danny's watchful gaze. Danny studied him in silence for a long while, saw how the lines of his face smoothed out, how his chest rose and fell with every deep inhale of oxygen, watched how his eyelids fluttered, signaling a dream of some kind. Danny chose to believe it was a good one as the corner of Steve's mouth turned upwards, and truth be told, he was beginning to think that he probably wouldn't mind seeing Steve like this more. But that was a conversation for another day.

Danny smiled, closed his eyes, and followed Steve into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t think I was the only one who didn’t believe Steve when he told Joe that he hadn’t told anyone about the ranch, not even Danny. I think Danny’s known about that ranch for a while now.
> 
> I am actually a bit of a Catherine/Harry shipper. I honestly think those two would get on very well. Steve and Catherine’s problem was that they were too much alike in ways that only hurt their relationship (on top of Catherine’s propensity for lying and keeping things from Steve he needed to know), but Harry and Catherine would understand each other very well, I think. They both have/had similar jobs, they understand secrecy and long-term covert operations, and I think their personalities match fairly well with each other.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it; comments are my chocolate!

**Author's Note:**

> At the end of the chapter, when Steve appears with the bucket and interrupts Cath and Danny, their dialogue from that point on is taken directly from the episode.


End file.
